by Ed Ifkovic
The old man suddenly embraced his grandson, his eyes watery, and I noticed Noah’s shoulders shook.
“Edna Ferber,” the old man said, “you must come back in summer, our short but lovely season. The wildflowers are brilliant colors, the forget-me-nots and purple fireweed and blue larkspur and wild pink roses and mountain azalea. Fields blazing in the hot sun. Fort Yukon is not just frozen wasteland—it can be paradise.” The old man nodded. “Life is a short season.”
“Grandfather.” Noah hugged him again.
“Edna, you must come back.”
“I’d love to.” But I knew I never would.
The dogsledders appeared, almost on cue, and the giggly, energetic twins tucked Noah and me in, poking fun at both of us, to my delight.
In the air, in the rattletrap matchbox of a plane with the hiccoughing motor, Noah sailed out over the Yukon and Porcupine rivers. It was a calm day, brassy and flinty with sharp sunlight, and Noah, though subdued, swooped and dipped and showed off. The plane sailed north, I thought, toward the pole, and Noah directed my gaze to herds of caribou. Then, turning south, he pointed. “The Yukon Flats.” I nodded, gazing at frozen ponds and foothills. Ice-locked ridges toward the west. “Look.” An animal—a fox? A lynx? A mink?—scurried into a copse of spruce. For a while the plane followed the river, then dipped away, farther out, over the flat, mundane tundra, with banks of squat, stunted spruce, a speckling of pale green and black against unrelenting pale white.
In the middle of nowhere the plane banked, seemed to hover, a hummingbird, though I knew it didn’t, and Noah pointed downward. “My trapline cabin,” he yelled.
I stared at the tiny log cabin sheltered in a grove of old black spruce and naked birch trees. Nothing around for miles and miles. A dot on the landscape. “There. My cabin.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Where I learned to be a man. Where I go to be alone.”
I could barely make out his words, but the tenor of his speech alarmed me. Images of disappearance, of wandering, of extinction flooded me. The plane turned again and seemed to be headed now in one direction.
Then the plane swooped over a bleak stretch of bitter rolling ice, a ripple of buckled blue-glass mound and crevasse. “My father died there.” He looked at me. “Somewhere his body rests in the ice. Deep now in the permafrost.”
His jaw set, his eyes avoided mine. For the rest of the short trip to Fairbanks, Noah was silent, and I knew I’d best be quiet. I could see his neck muscles jutting out, thick cords of sinew and blood. I could see his hands gripping the controls—white-knuckled, frozen.
When we landed at Weeks Field, he taxied to a stop, but just sat there. I started to fidget, but I watched his impassive profile. He stared straight ahead, then cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“You can never be rude, Noah.”
He turned, looked into my face. “Whenever I fly over that part of the tundra, I think of my father.”
“But you seemed to head in that direction.”
He smiled thinly. “Nearly thirty years and I’m still looking to see him out there. Bush pilots talk of seeing visions there. Spirits come to them as they fly over that world. I wait and I wait.” He bit his lip. “But I shouldn’t have made you a part of it.”
“Don’t apologize. No.”
“I suppose, it’s the not knowing. He—never returned. So it’s like he’s still out there.”
His fingers trembling, he sat back, his face turned away from mine.
Chapter Twenty-one
I sat up in bed.
I had an idea.
An hour later, after coffee and some harried note-taking on a sheet of creamy Nordale Hotel stationery, I knocked on Hank’s office door. He was sitting at his desk, rifling through some copy, though he looked listless. A lit cigarette, unsmoked, lay in an ashtray, a snake’s coil of ash. There he sat, busy, and I wondered about his decision to give up The Gold. I also wondered about Paul. Was he in his office across the hall? The editorial rooms of the newspaper were eerily silent, even the receptionist missing from the front desk.
“Can you spare me a minute, Hank?”
“Of course, Edna. Come in. Please.” He motioned toward a chair.
Sitting opposite him, a little nervous, I began, “I spent the last two days in Fort Yukon with Noah and his grandfather…”
“I know.”
“I figured you did.”
“How is old Nathan?”
“A man easy to like.”
For a moment his eyes got cloudy. “A great soul.”
“He says good things about you.”
A pause. “Even now?”
“Especially now.”
He looked down at the stack of papers. “I don’t know what to say.” He blinked fast and managed a sliver of a smile
I locked eyes with him. “Nathan West told me a lot about the old days, the early hunting days, the interwoven lives of you, Tessa, the Athabascans there. Noah’s early days. The missionaries. Quite an education for me. Quite wonderful, in fact. And it got me to thinking about Sonia’s note to Tessa—as though Tessa holds answers.”
Hank wet his lips, running his tongue over them. “Answers? Tessa? My Sonia?”
“I’ll tell you what I think. Sonia started looking into the early days, especially all that interplay up at Fort Yukon and Venetie. She was obsessed with her ‘White Silence’ columns—the old pioneers. After Jack was murdered, and then Sam, she started to investigate—mainly in response to Noah’s pushing her. She learned something—probably because of Sam Pilot’s behavior. It troubled her. His cryptic remarks in the lounge. Jack’s remarks to him. And somehow she thought Tessa had an answer. Jack Mabie.”
Hank whispered, “Sonia asked me about him, Edna. I told her about Jack killing that missionary, Tessa’s old friend.”
“And rumors of Tessa’s affair with him? Rumors about Preston?”
He nodded. “Gossip.”
“But Sonia started to connect some dots. Some dots. There was no reason someone would murder Jack these days. An old drunk man. But maybe his ugly past from the North demanded someone here—now, in Fairbanks—take revenge.”
“But Tessa?”
“Sonia didn’t know. She wanted a name. She wanted Tessa to tell her something.”
“What?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know yet. But Tessa was only concerned with Preston—her fear that he was a murderer.”
“So she tried to blame Noah?”
“She never talked to Sonia, but Sonia knew she was on to a story. The real murderer. Jack was dead. But Sam still alive. Though not for long. Does this make sense, Hank?”
He shook his head. “You know, Edna, I don’t know what makes sense anymore.”
I caught a yellow taxi to Tessa’s home. Raina let me in, but said that Tessa was in bed. I persisted: “Please, just a minute of her time.” Quietly, the girl left me in the vestibule, and when she returned, she simply nodded to the back of the house.
Tessa lay in her rumpled bed and looked as though she’d been there for days. A musky odor, almost of dried autumn flowers or decaying fruit, sweet but oddly noxious, filled the space, and Tessa, propped up against a bank of mismatched pillows, looked sloe-eyed, drugged.
“You intrude again,” she mumbled.
“I’m trying to save a life.”
“And diminish the lives of others?” Tessa spat out, bitingly.
“Only if necessary.”
“What do you want now?” Nervous, she looked to the nightstand. For cigarettes? But Tessa left the pack of cigarettes untouched.
“I spent the last two days in Fort Yukon.”
“I know.”
I smiled. “Was it in the papers? Banner headlines? My lovely photograph in the rotogravure?”
Tess
a snapped at me. “We are a powerful family, Edna. Rats and sycophants and low-lifes cannot wait to deliver news to us, to curry crumbs of favor.”
“What favor can you still provide these days?” I knew it was a cruel line. I noticed Tessa avoided eye contact.
Tessa smiled. “I can provide silence.”
“Even if it’s destructive?”
Her head swiveled as she spoke to the wall. “Well, that’s your judgment call.”
“I’m still asking about Sonia’s last failed visit with you—that note that frightened you so.”
“I’ve had heart attacks—I’m easily cowed.”
I neared the bed. “I doubt that.”
Silence, then a shaking of the head. “Nothing lies buried under Arctic snow for very long. The crevasses eventually spit up their secrets.”
“I want to ask you about the murdered missionary up North.”
That startled her. “Why?”
“Jack Mabie and the cruel murder of your friend.”
For a moment she dipped her head to her chest, trembled. “I still think of that…that poor, innocent man, a man of God, butchered…”
“Did you know his killer, Jack Mabie?”
She shook her head. “I already told you—no. Yes, I heard of him. Maybe saw him. I don’t know. Who hadn’t?”
“But he killed your friend.”
“Because he wanted his wife.”
“But Sam Pilot lied for him.”
“Him I knew, though faintly.”
“Tell me why Sonia thought you had an answer. Was it because of Jack murdering that missionary?” I sucked in my breath. “A man you supposedly had an affair with. Rumors of little Preston…”
She shrieked. “Enough.” She rubbed her temples. “All these years later. The lies. Again. It never happened. Never. Never.”
“I’m only repeating…”
“Lies.” Tessa looked scared. “But why now? All these years later. Really, Edna. Preposterous, no?” She started to laugh, a gurgling sound that made the rolls of hideous fat weave and buckle. She ended up choking and reached for a cigarette. When she lit it, her hands trembled.
“The reason for the three murders points back to Fort Yukon. The Arctic. Your life there.”
“I was a child of God.”
“Whose friend Ned was shot to death. An innocent man.” I breathed in. “Nathan remembered, gossiped”—I smiled as I remembered his hesitant use of the word—“you and this man, this Ned Thomas became…involved.”
“He was a married man. His wife my friend.”
“Nevertheless, the gossip suggested…an affair.”
“How dare you!”
“When Sonia said ‘Jack Mabie’ and ‘Sam Pilot’ in her note, you knew she connected you to the murdered missionary. Yet you kept quiet.”
“So long ago.” Her eyes narrowed. “That part of the story was years later. I was already in Fairbanks. I’d met my new husband. A letter told me that Ned was shot to death. I was stunned. But I hadn’t seen him—his family—in years. It was just a horrible story I read about then. I cried for him—for them. The name Jack Mabie, yes, was mentioned, but I…I was far away then. It was like reading a newspaper article.”
“Yes, but one that included the mention of a man you’d loved.”
She shivered. “Did love. As a friend, really. And his wife.”
“But when Jack Mabie was murdered here in Fairbanks, didn’t you think that it had something to do with the past? Maybe your past?”
“No, of course not. I’d”—she looked away—“forgotten about Jack Mabie. He supposedly killed so many others—his shameful reputation. Sonia’s story in The Gold. Ned was but one. Yes, I knew him—so what? But Sonia somehow wanted to tie me into the story. Or, worse, my Preston. I’m a powerful woman. Why would I want that scurrilous note circulating around Fairbanks?”
“As you say, long ago. Maybe three decades.”
“No matter,” she snarled. “The horrible killer.”
“Whom someone now killed. And then his sidekick, Sam Pilot. Maybe someone wanted both men dead—keep them quiet.”
“How naïve, Edna, you are. Killing would make people talk of the past—bring up rumors.” She laughed. “Crazily, I’d want to keep them alive, no?”
“I don’t know. But perhaps righting a wrong? Revenge?”
She gasped. “You don’t think I would…stupid revenge? Really! You think I…employed my Preston to do murder? A balance sheet, to even out the edges of what happened years and years ago?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Tessa looked frightened. “Are you saying I… Are you saying the murder of that man…Ned…that I wanted revenge?”
“Preston’s real father?”
She closed her eyes. “Stop this. Stop this. Lies. Lies.”
I interrupted. “You knew a man whom Jack murdered.”
She stammered, “Decades ago. Preston knows nothing of those years—of Ned Thomas.”
“But you did.”
“So what?” She roared, “Look at Noah West. Sonia was warned about him. You will do anything to take the light off Noah West.”
Her words stunned. “This is not what I’m talking about.”
But she was through with me. Her hand shot out, in my face. She sucked in some cigarette smoke.
She pointed to the door. “Out.”
“I…”
“I’m tired of being pleasant to you, Edna Ferber.” A drag on her cigarette. “Out.”
Bundled up at mid-afternoon, I walked to Indian Village. I wasn’t looking for Noah—he’d told me he was flying to Tok that day to settle some legal matters for some Athabascans at war with each other over the loan of a few dollars. But I found what I was looking for—a small drugstore called Mussey’s. Clint had told me where to go, offered to come with me, but I’d said no, not this time. I sat at the narrow lunch counter and ordered coffee. The other diners, perched on stools, gaped at me. Indianland, I thought, and I’m the intruder, an old lady with a black patent leather purse and cumbersome mukluks. The waitress stood in front of me, chewing gum and frowning.
Finally, I said, “Is Maria West here today?”
“She’s in back. Why?”
“A friend.”
“I doubt that.”
But at that moment Maria walked out of a back room, in her hands a tray of glasses, and she stopped short. Her sudden frozen face told me she did not want Edna Ferber approaching her there.
Breezily, I called to her. “I need your help. To save your brother.”
Maria peered at me, wary. “Noah?”
“You have more than one brother?”
Maria put down the tray, glared at the waitress, and walked around to the front of the counter. She slid onto the stool next to me.
“What do you want?”
I stared at her. Too much lipstick. Too much rouge. Too much of everything, this naturally pretty woman. A stunner, she was, but a web of wrinkles at the eye corners, along the lips. The ravages of a life of…what? Poverty? What did I really know about her?
I spoke in a soft voice. “Sam Pilot stayed with you his last days. I’ve asked you before, and I’m asking you again—he must have talked.”
She was shaking her head vigorously, then a broad smile. “You didn’t know the old man, Miss Ferber. A rock, granite, sitting in a chair and staring at the wall. I come back from the drugstore, greet him, fry an egg or a chop, something to eat, and he barely moves.”
“But once he learned Jack Mabie was in town?”
She nodded. “True, that made him—well, maybe lively.” She laughed. “For a split second.” Her eyes darkened. “Happy, then angry, then…blank. His look used to scare me.”
“He liked you?”
“Blood—and I left him alone.”
“When Jack was murdered, did he talk?”
She thought for a bit. “Yeah, actually he did. He got this…like talking jag one night, rambling, then when he met with Noah—I guess they talked at the Nordale—he clammed up. But I could see something was bothering him.”
“Okay, you told me that before. Why?” I looked into her face.
“I don’t know.”
“And then he was murdered.”
She started. “I thought he just, you know, got drunk and fell against a wall. Froze himself.”
“Murdered,” I said, emphasizing the word. “That’s what Noah and I believe.”
She shivered. “Oh, Christ, Miss Ferber.” She sucked in her cheeks. “You know, Sonia Petrievich visited him at my apartment.”
I sat up. “What?”
“Right before he died. She rushes in, bombarding him with questions. I’m in the kitchen so I don’t hear most of it, but he don’t answer her. He stares at her, puts his hand over his heart, and stares her down.”
“Sonia thought he knew why—not by whom—Jack was murdered.”
“When I walked in, he’s there, hand on his heart, and he said, ‘“Get this woman outa here.’”
“What did she do?”
“She left.”
“What did he say afterwards?”
Maria bit her lip and gazed over my shoulder. She spoke in a hollow voice, so low I had to lean in. “He said, ‘I have lived long enough to see the dead come back to life.’”
Someone called to her from the back room, and she jumped. “I gotta work. Sorry.”
“Maria…”
But she was moving away. Over her shoulder she said, “Tell Noah I said hello.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Noah and I sat in the Gold Nugget waiting for Ty Gilley. Mid-afternoon, the place empty, the waitress poured us coffee and then disappeared into the back kitchen. Noah, restless, kept looking toward the doorway. I reached out and touched his wrist. “Calm down.”
“I can’t.” Then he laughed. “I’m always calm, Edna.”